1. Field of the Invention (Technical Field)
The present invention generally relates to tire mounting and more particularly to a method and apparatus for handling, positioning, and assisting in seating the bead on tires, especially tubeless truck and tractor tires.
2. Background Art
There are several variations of tire changing stands available on the market. They range from the adjustable variety to those of a fixed position type, which elevates the tire for working on it in a shop environment.
There are a number of inherent limitations and shortcomings in these prior art devices relating to the tire inflation process, especially to seating the bead of the mounted tire. These limitations are associated with the inability of these prior art tire changing stands while handling the tire and wheel, centering the tire on the wheel, supporting the sidewalls of the tire in the bead seating process, and to ensure a non-eccentric mounting of the bead. Further, these prior art devices are strictly limited to a very limited range of wheel and tire sizes and Wheel types. These limitations are a result of the general construction of the prior art devices. For instance, both adjustable and fixed tire changing stands, generally have two adjustable semi-circular supports (adjustable) or a fixed sized ring (fixed), elevated over a supporting base. These prior art tire changing devices have no means of handling the tire with a minimum of strain to the user when laying the tire in the horizontal working position or when raising the tire back to a vertical rolling position. The tire is generally dropped onto the elevated stand and then manually lifted off the said stand when finished. Further, these devices require the user to manually center the tire on the rim for beading the tire. These devices do not self-center the tire because they are laid on a flat plane on which the tire rests. This flat plane construction supports only the wheel and provides no support to the tire sidewalls, which can assist in seating the bead on tubeless tires. Due to these failures in the prior art devices, eccentric mounting of the tire on a wheel generally occurs, requiring remounting of the tire. Finally, these tire changing stands limit the range of tires and types of wheels that may be used, because these fixed tire changing stands offer no adjustment, while the adjustable stand offers only a narrow range of adjustment and require reassembly of the tire changing stand.